Sustenance
 

 

When glacial bogs blush with berries

it'll be a hard winter, folks say.

 

He is cutting down a dead pine near the cabin,

beetle-killed by drought last summer.

His chainsaw knows the hearth's width

without measuring.

 

I went to the orchard on Route 5

and bought peaches for canning.

The kitchen smells of sweetness,

furry skins sloughed off with blanching,

floor juice-sticky.

 

He comes in for lunch,

fills the room with flannel and sawdust.

"A lot of work," he says.

"Yes," I answer.

We eat warmed over stew.

He cleans his plate with bread crust and pushes back his chair.

"Back at it," he mutters and opens the door.

 

A cold wind makes gooseflesh on my arms

as I set the pint jars of preserves 

in steaming water to make them sterile. 

                             Sarah Russell
                               First published in The Houseboat